Sunday, 28 June 2015

Madeira LSP Cake

I
am so totally out of the loop on current television ‘must sees’ that it’s
embarrassing. You name a hit show of the last 5-10 years and I can
guarantee I won’t have seen it. Mad Men? Breaking Bad? Game
of Thrones? Nope. Never even seen a snippet of them. House of
Cards? No, which really baffles me given I’m a huge Kevin Spacey fan. What about home grown ‘must sees’ like The
Thick of It? Downton Abbey? Broadchurch? Nope, they are just names
to me. I’m not trying to be cool, and I’m certainly not one of those
people who says, ‘oh no, we don’t watch television’ in a tone that suggests
you’ve just asked them whether they eat babies. I can’t explain it – modern
drama just doesn’t appeal. There is however one TV show we are utterly
obsessed with and it’s a cartoon series called Adventure Time. I don’t usually like animation but there is something about Adventure
Time that is so original, imaginative and downright bonkers that I am hooked. It packs more creativity into one short
episode than most shows could dream of doing in a series.

Adventure
Time is set in a post-apocalyptic world, which is never-quite-explained.
We know that the world and most humans seem to have been wiped out in the
‘Mushroom Wars’ and all the characters now live in the Land of Ooo, which is
divided into different regions most of which are ruled by a princess or a king.
The protagonists are brothers Jake the Dog and Finn the Human (it is explained-
Jake’s family adopted Finn as a baby, yes I have got it the right way round!)
but for me the best character by a country mile is Lumpy Space Princess (often referred to as LSP). LSP is
the self-centred, pretty horrible princess of Lumpy Space who prefers to live
rough in the woods and is happy as long as she has a can of beans to heat up
for dinner. Even her apologies turn into insults this is my favourite so
far: ‘I'm sorry that you're starving
because I ate all of your crops, even though you're all still really fat, and I
probably helped you lose some weight’. Completely convinced of her
gorgeousness (fair enough – look at her!) she has a brilliant voice and way of
speaking that is quite hard to impersonate, much as I try.

This
cake is my tribute to the awesomeness of LSP. The flower tin I used gives
an approximation of her luscious lumps but isn’t 100% accurate. It was
better than trying to carve a cake into the right proportions….me and cake
carving do not get along; look at the issues I’ve had with the decoration
alone!

The cake itself is a classic madeira –
buttery, spongey and, thanks to the addition of the almonds, moist and keeps
well (I say that, but I’m guessing….don’t judge!). If LSP does nothing for you, then overlook
the decoration and focus on the lovely Madeira underneath – it’s a
cracker! I am under no illusions that my
decoration skills are poor. If I asked
LSP what she thought of it I have no doubt she would say something like: ‘it’s
totally lame, whatever.’

Grease
a 20cm flower shaped pan – you can also use a normal 20cm round springform, or
a 900g loaf tin if you’re not fussed about making your cake look like LSP!

Beat
together the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy – don’t skimp on
this stage. Because of the ratios, and the fact that it’s golden caster
sugar, the batter won’t go quite as light and fluffy as it would for say a
normal sponge mix.

Beat
in the eggs, one at a time.

Beat
in the vanilla.

Fold
in the flour and ground almonds.

The
mixture should be dropping consistency i.e. fall of the spoon with only gentle
encouragement. If it isn’t, fold in a tablespoon of milk to slacken it.

Spoon
into the prepared cake tin and level the surface.

Bake
for approximately 40 mins – 1 hour. It will take nearer the hour if you
use a loaf tin, but less if you use a round tin. Start checking after 30
minutes for a round tin, just to make sure you don’t leave it in too
long. The cake is ready when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out
clean.

Leave
to cool in the tin for 20 minutes before de-tinning and leaving to cool
completely on a wire rack.

Once
the cake is cool place a large sheet of foil under the cooling rack – this will
catch any icing drips and make the clean up easy.

Now
make the glaze: Beat the boiling water into the icing sugar a teaspoon at
a time. This doesn’t seem like a lot of water but the glaze can become
too runny so quickly that I like to go slow and monitor the change each
teaspoon makes.

When
the glaze is gloopy but not quite as runny as you want, add the food
colouring. As this is a gel it will also have an effect on the viscosity
of the icing.

Once
you reach the point where the icing is glossy and runny (but still thick) spoon
it over the cake and gently spread it out so that it runs down the sides.
To get good coverage on the sides there will be waste, hence the foil under the
cooling rack.

Leave
to set.

Using
a black icing pen (I wanted to get one from the supermarket but they didn’t
have any – Tesco, grrrrr, so I ended up making one with food dye which was a
bit grey) ice on LSP’s eyes, mouth and arms.

13 comments:

I absolutely love this, her expression is priceless. I'm going to have to keep an eye out for this programme as it sounds hilarious!

You're not alone with feeling out the loop with modern tv. I've only seen 1 and 1/2 of the programmes you've mentioned (I stopped watching Game Of Thrones at the end of series 3 as I didn't like it. I found myself intensely disliking all of the characters!)I've been watching reruns of older programmes like Morse or Taggart instead!

Dearest CC, I was so excited when I read your post on the chocolate tarts. You're back! Hope you've been well. I've never watched Adventure Time but I've seen people make LSP mini cheesecakes and stuff and I love cartoons- have never grown out of them, really!

Coincidence.......I saw a post by Olive Magazine about three minutes ago for Strawberry Trifles, which included Madeira Cake. I did a quick google search for a Madeira Cake recipe and found one on the BBC Good Food site. Then I thought to myself, I wonder if one of my favourite bloggers has returned to the fold, and even if she hasn't, she's bound to have a recipe for Madeira Cake......and there you are! I'm so pleased you're back, I don't care how infrequently you post, as long as you post!

I too don't watch a lot of TV. It's not that I'm against TV I just don't seem to have the time between being a full time mom, working two part time jobs, babysitting, and baking and blogging and reading and sleeping and so on. I used to love a good drama, but sadly just haven't gotten into one lately.

I do though watch Phineas and Ferb with the girls and if I catch it in the after school My Little Pony. Both shows are just clever. I will now need to check out this Adventure Time show! Cake looks great!

Your taste is impeccable, no pun intended. I have seen Broadchurch, but none of the others you mentioned. Totally can do without. Gave up on Downton two series ago.Will always find time to look at your cake recipes, however.

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